The Wielder of the Omnitrix and The Living Incarnation of Greed
by Zero Slash One
Summary: What if: A Forever Knight attack went differently than expected, both for the armor-clad knights, a young hero and his team, and for a certain Homunculus?


The sixteen-year old Gwen Tennyson was not having a good day. A quiet saturday afternoon at Mr Smoothy had been interrupted by a surprise arrival, courtesy of the Forever Knights.

Strangely, while the employees and customers had escaped from the scene when they showed up, one person, a skinny-yet-somewhat-muscular male no older than nineteen, had stayed.

"What's with the get-up?" The man snorted mockingly, much to Ben's surprise. He seemed entirely calm, as though unconcerned with the fact that a laser-weapon was pointed at him. "It's not Halloween, as far as I know."

The knights eyed eachother, amused by the unarmed man. He almost regretted firing a blast of azure energy at him. Almost, he thought.

Ben's eyes widened in shock when he saw the Forever Knight thoughtlessly gun down an innocent person, his hand moving to the Omnitrix on his wrist, ready to transform into Swampfire, when he noticed something incredible.

Both Ben, Gwen, Kevin, the Forever Knights, and everyone blinked in surprise, when the man barely seemed fazed by the shot. There was no injured skin on his chest where he had been shot, no wince of pain, yet everyone present had seen him get hit.

The Forever Knight stared, incredulously. The man's shirt had seemingly transformed into some kind of metal that took the blast in stride. He tentatively ruled out the man being another like Kevin Levin, as whatever species Levin was assimilated material to cover their bodies, whereas this man's skin just transformed into it. And what sort of metal could take a laser blast and be no worse for wear?

"Nice gun you've got there," The man smirked mockingly, approaching him slowly. Both Knights took a cautious step backwards. "Bit unpersonal for my taste, though; if you're gonna kill someone, you should at least have the balls to do it yourself. Allow me to demonstrate."

"You-you're with Tennyson's group, aren't you?!" One of the knight stuttered in horror. Why else would someone fight back against them, if they didn't share the Tennyson wretch's overtly idealistic sense of morality? Though his seeming willingness to kill would point to the contrary, they were a diverse bunch.

The man gave him a blank look. "Huh? Who's 'Tennyson'? I'm Greed the Avaricious!" He declared smirking, holding up his hand as if though the tattoo on it was supposed to mean something. Gwen recognized the symbol as a highly stylized, more cartoonish version of an Ouroboros, though this mark contained six triangles in a hexagonal arrangement. Within those triangles were what appeared to be a Flamel symbol.

"So to answer your question, no, I'm _not _on Tennyson's group; if anything, he's on mine!" He continued.

"'Greed the Avaricious'?!" The Knights bit back skeptically, amused by his bombastic tone and perfect delivery of a very silly title. "You do realize it's several on one, right?"

Greed smirked in response to the question, as his hands and lower arms became the same dark-grayish metallic material the Knight thought his shirt had briefly become.

Ben, Gwen and Kevin blinked; were his arms actually _becoming _metal? Gwen knew it to be scientifically impossible, yet he had recited no brief spell, not even a hushed whisper, so it wasn't magic, yet the man, who she refused to think of as 'Greed', due to the name being ridiculous, was violating the law of conservation of mass by covering his body in metal without having a supply of the material available. He couldn't be transforming his skin into that metal either, as even part-human biology couldn't stand that sort of process.

"Bye," Greed smirked. plunging his armored hand into the Knight's armored midsection, shredding the armor with ease. The wounded Knight fell to the ground, clutching his profusely bleeding abdomen, as a trickle of blood poured to the floor.

Savoring his handiwork, Greed blinked when he was enveloped in a cube of pink glass-like material. As the other Knight scurried from the area, he surmised that they hadn't been responsible for it. "Jeez..." Greed muttered, bored. "Pink? Talk about effeminate..."

Gwen blinked in annoyance and confusion. Not was this 'Greed' guy seemingly disinterested by her display of power, he was also ribbing it as effeminate? Gwen supposed that he wasn't wrong on the latter count, but it was still irritating.

Greed suddenly noticed the three people glaring at him.

One was a somewhat tall, brown-haired male with bright-green eyes, wearing a emerald-green jacket with a black shirt underneath and casual blue jeans.

Beside him was a red-haired teenage girl around the same height, sporting the same shade of green eyes, wearing a black vest over a red shirt and soft-grey pants. Her hand was glowing with the same pink light that his prison seemed made of.

Beside her was a notably taller, raven-haired male, with a considerably more bulky than the other two, wearing a grey long-sleeved shirt under a black short-sleeved shirt, and navy-blue jeans.

"Care to let me outta here, doll?" He smirked at the red-head, who pursed her lips in frustration, shifting her hand lightly, and his prison shrunk inward. "Nice manners... But I do run into people like that often..." He replied, as memories of his fights with Ed and Al, and their... Remarkable teacher resurfaced in his mind.

"We have some questions for you," The red-head coolly told Greed, ignoring his remark. "First, how did you cover your arms in that metal without a spell, any sort of technology, or a supply of the material?"

Greed gave the girl a weary look. "1; that's my Ultimate Shield for you. 2; magic isn't real, I don't _need_ any techology, and my skin turns into it."

Greed grinned smugly as Gwen shook her head in exasperation, wondering how he could call it the Ultimate Shield when it barely covered his arms. "I don't care what you call that power. Magic _is _actually real, and lastly, that's scientifically impossible; your biology can't handle that sort of stress."

"Human biology can't," Greed shot back at the skeptical group. They were suspecting him to be half-Osmosian like Kevin, but even Osmosians shouldn't be able to do what he had. To their horror, he began scratching at his chest with his right arm. Once he had torn through the skin-layers, they saw what appeared to be a gemstone, buried in his flesh, connected to his body with what seemed to be nervous tissue. "Mine's a little different..."

Ben, Gwen and Kevin eyed the pulsating, glowing jewel in shock, horror and disgust, wondering who could possibly have put that thing there, and what purpose it could possibly serve. Suddenly, arcs of crackling electricity erupted from his skin as the edges of the injury shone and his chest healed the injury in seconds.

"What... _IS _that?!" Ben slowly asked, once he had gotten over the shock of seeing it.

"My Philosopher's Stone," Greed off-handedly replied.

"Philosopher's Stone?!" Gwen exclaimed. A Philosopher's Stone was supposedly the ultimate alchemical artifact, capable of transforming base metals into gold or silver, and possibly grant immortality. But there was nothing in the myth of the Philosopher's stone that involved regeneration; the closest thing to _that_ was rejuvenation. Did this guy seriously believe that the jewel embedded in his chest was a Philosopher's Stone?

"You got it," Greed grinned. Ben decided that it wasn't impossible, as they had often seen stranger things.

"Who put that thing there?!" Kevin shouted. Greed's grin widened in response.

"We Homunculi are created with Philosopher's Stones as our hearts and cores," Greed revealed. Ben blinked at the term, 'Homunculi', wondering what species that referred to, while Gwen raised an eyebrow in skepticism. To her knowledge, 'Homunculi' was the plural form of 'Homunculus', the word pertaining to alchemically-generated humanoids. But Alchemy was a myth, so how could he be a Homunculus?

"Now could you let me outta here?" Greed casually inquired. "I kinda have places to be."

"We can help with that," Ben told him. Greed eyed the brunet curiously. "We can get you home to your own planet."

"Huh?" Greed blinked at the teen casually referring to his place of origin as a separate planet. While technically he was, that planet was Earth in another universe. "Look, kid, I appreciate the offer, but if you don't mind, I'll stick around. Amestris kinda has that Promised Day thing going on right now."

Gwen blinked. She had never heard of any planet called 'Amestris', nor did she understand what exactly he meant by 'Promised Day', though she saw no harm in asking more.

"Amestris? Promised Day?" Kevin replied, confused. "What're you talking about? I've never heard of any planet called Amestris-"

Greed suddenly began to snicker mockingly. "Nor would you, kid. Amestris isn't the name of the planet, it's the name of the country."

"Never heard of Amestris, either," Gwen interjected. To her surprise, Greed's smirk widened.

"Well, that's hardly a concern of mine," He pointed out. "Now could you let me out?"

Gwen sighed; likely they weren't going to get anymore information from him, though it didn't matter too much whether they did or not; he'd already told them enough.

"Last question," Ben said. "What's the 'Promised Day'?"

"The Promised Day?" Greed responded humorlessly, eyeing the three darkly. "Four-hundred years, seven Homunculi, several Philosopher's Stones, fifty million human souls reduced to energy, five human sacrifices... All so Father could obtain Godhood."

Ben, Gwen and Kevin's eyes widened, in shock and disgust. This guy's father would sacrifice millions of innocent lives just so he could become more powerful? Just what sort of insane, depraved psychopath was that guy?!

"That's insane..." Gwen whispered, deeply horrified, her energy-cage fading, releasing Greed.

"Well, it's been fun," Greed smirked at them. "Bye."

"Not so fast," Ben shouted. Why he slammed his hand on his wrist-device, Greed didn't quite understand, nor was he particularly interested in knowing. The action unleashed a pulsating emerald light all over Ben's body, transforming him into a humanoid plant-like creature, announcing his name as 'Swampfire!'. Greed stifled a laugh; a light-show and shapeshifting? He got enough of that with Envy.

Strangely to Gwen, he didn't seem all that impressed or surprised to see Ben transform. In fact, he seemed more disinterested than anything.

"So, the science of this world has evolved to approach Alchemy..." Greed mused.

Swampfire ignored his statement, mainly due to not understanding how Alchemy was involved, and charged at him.

Greed easily sidestepped the first few punches, before slicing open the left side of Swampfire's stomach. The injured Swampfire crumpled into a heap in front of Greed.

"Come on, is that all you've got?" Greed laughed, while Gwen and Kevin were speechless. With the Omnitrix, Ben was likely one of the most powerful beings in the universe, and he'd just received a sound beating. "I've literally gotten a thorough ass-kicking from a twelve-year double amputee who spends most of his time studying, and his disembodied soul of a brother."

Ben groaned in frustration at this, wincing as he got up, his injured side repairing itself too slowly for his liking, though he ignored the pain and threw another punch, which Greed effortlessly caught, responding in kind with a clawed hand through the chest. Ben screamed in agony, as Greed retracted his hand.

"BEN!" Gwen screamed, watching in horror as her cousin collapsed backwards.

"Well, this fight's over," Greed dismissively noted, watching with mild interest as Swampfire's damaged chest cavity slowly began to reseal itself. It was rather fascinating to watch someone else regenerate their body, he decided, even when Ben's healing was much less efficient than his own; unlike Greed's Stone-powered healing, Swampfire seemed to use only his own body-mass, severely limiting how fast and how much he could regenerate at any given time.

"Anyone care to take this guy outta here?" Greed sardonically asked the two, a bit annoyed that they weren't bothering to aid their own injured ally. Gwen blinked in confusion, watching Greed stand idly by while Kevin rushed to Swampfire's side, leaving the restaurant to the Homunculus and the red-head.

"Hopefully, you'll prove more of a challenge than the brown-haired guy," Greed muttered to Gwen. "Seriously, the guy had all his limbs..."

Gwen raised an eye-brow in shock and disgust at what he was alluding to. "You've _really_ been in a fight with a disabled person?!" He _hadn't _just been mocking Ben with that?!

"I don'believe in telling lies, miss," Greed grinned. "A twelve-year kid missing an arm and a leg, and his brother's disembodied soul, bound to a suit of armor."

When he finished speaking, Gwen paused, her eyes wide, before she started to laugh. "A disembodied soul, bound to a suit of armor? You can't be serious!"

"Oh, I rather am," Greed responded. Gwen's laughter ceased slowly. How was that even possible? A suit of armor wasn't a brain or a computer; it had no way to process or store information or memories. There was no mouth, eyes and ears, so even assuming it possible, the soul should for all intents and purposes be dead. And even if some relative sentience was possible, there should be no way for the soul to animate the armor; how could it, with no musculature or cartilage?

"But if you've got no objections, I'll just leave," Greed told her, when another cylindrical energy-barrier appeared around him. "See, normally I would tell you that I'm not the kind of guy who fights defenseless women, but as you're not defenseless, you're on, miss." He smirked, as he jabbed over and over at her construct, the crack in the glass-like material widening with each blow, before shattering entirely.

Gwen swung her hand, creating another barrier. She blinked when rather than continuing the fight, the man ran off, at an impressive speed for a human.

...

...

...

Later that day, Ben, Gwen and Kevin were in the RV, handing in a report of the situation to Max.

"We're telling you, grandpa, this guy was violating the laws of physics," Ben asserted to the skeptical Max Tennyson.

"So, he _wasn't _using magic, yet he could demonstrate osmosian-like abilites, in spite of being entirely human?" The veteran plumber questioned. "Sorry, Ben, but it just doesn't seem to make sense."

"The guy tore Ben apart in seconds, and had some kind of jewel in the middle of his chest, instead of a heart!" Kevin exclaimed. "He's not human, but he's not some kind of alien either."

"Then, what exactly is he?" Max questioned. If he was neither human or alien, that narrowed it down to extra-dimensional or timetraveller, yet in those cases it would likely be someone with a score to settle with Ben, yet this guy had not displayed any knowledge of his grandson.

"I think he's from a parallel universe," Gwen suggested. "One where Alchemy is real, and where metaphysics is the primary subject of research."

"Quite an astute observation on the latter count," A familiar voice spoke, while a bright light shone from the back of the RV. The four turned to the left, and saw a dark-haired man in a white labcoat, along with a woman, no older than seventeen or nineteen, with a golden-blonde mohawk on an otherwise bald head, emerald-green eyeballs, clad in a scarlet-and-black suit that clung tightly to her body.

"Professor Paradox!" The teens exclaimed, while Max noted that this was the first time he had met the immortal time-traveler.

"Xadhoom," Max flatly greeted, trying not to make his distaste for the woman known. Gwen and Kevin stared quizzically at him, wondering how he knew the woman, while Ben preferred not to dwell on that detail, remembering both Xylene and Verdona clearly.

"Long time no see, Maxwell," The woman greeted with a smirk, her tone holding no real malice. Indeed, it really had been; almost twenty years from since that time where they fought that stray group of Arburian Pelarotas together, to keep them from activating the Space-Time Transmutation Circle. From his, almost forty by her estimate.

"How is the Avenger?" Maxwell tersely inquired. At this question, a note of pain flickered across Xadhoom's face, before fading just as quickly.

"Long dead, I'm sorry to say," She quietly answered. Max's eyes widened; he was... dead? The Avenger had been a good friend of the veteran plumber. They'd bonded over the six months in space, shared experiences, common history and fought battles making them closer than brothers. It was difficult to imagine him gone.

"To absent friends, then," Max spoke solemnly.

"To absent friends," Xadhoom intoned.

"Would somebody tell what's going on here?!" Ben exclaimed in exasperation at their cryptic conversation. "Who is that blonde woman, why did Professor Paradox bring her here, and how does she know Grandpa!?"

"For the second question, Benjamin, she is the solution to your Homunculus problem. Like it or not, that one is far too much for you to handle..."

"And as for the last question, Ben, that's a long and complicated story," Max softly told his grandson.

"I am Xadhoom, mister Tennyson," The woman grinned widely. "That is all you need to know."

* * *

**Well, this seems like a dece****nt enough beginning. ****That being said, anyone who expects quick updates is to be sorely disappointed, as I have a metric ton of other stuff going on.**


End file.
